Lee on Nov 27 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
A Deccan Mujahedeen gunman has spoken by telephone to a television station from within the Oberoi Trident Hotel (which has since been raided by Indian special forces units), and said the motivation of the attacks was to end persecution of Indian Muslims and force the release of jailed Islamic militants.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Sep 13 2008 | Filed under: Culture, Foreign affairs
Photos of Russian kids mounting a street protest against the banning of South Park by the state. This is no small or meaningless act.
As daily experience, one of the worst aspects of living under a repressive fascist regime is how utterly boring it is. It is a horrible experience to be a teenager in a society where every radio station plays only opera, and every television show is a boring panegyric to the wisdom of the regime.
This is an intrinsic hostility to youthful enthusiasms too. In more than one way fascism can be described as a permanent war conducted by the state on the innate liberality and frivolousness of youth. Under fascism, something as light-hearted as South Park becomes “extremist propaganda” because the fascist is altogether incapable of understanding the necessary playfulness of entertainment. He feels the driving necessity to infect everything with deep political significance.
It is by such a course that the abolition of free expression induces the characteristically pervasive and perverse boredom of its societies. This does not only affect youth either, as a society robs itself of its own vitality by repressing its youth’s enthusiasm.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Sep 06 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Lee on Aug 14 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lee's Page, Media
Georgian television reporter Tamara Urushadze gets shot by a Russian sniper as she delivered a live report near Gori. Tough girl, she finishes the report without a tear.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Aug 14 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
There’s a certain problem in that the folks who protest most vociferously about the Bush administration’s violations of free speech rights, also tend to support the direct government regulation of political speech. A disturbing poll suggests they may have the wind at their back, with 47% (a plurality) supporting federal regulation of political content on television and radio, with 31% (a minority), supporting the same for blogs. Needless to say, this is an abhorrent finding.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Aug 01 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
MichaelW on Jun 13 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Lee on Jan 30 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Do you remember in the 80s when there were these bizarre quasi-political trash shows with psychopathic screaming hosts on television and the radio? They were something like a combination of Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Springer. Here’s video of two of the worst getting into a fight over who is more “conservative.” Wally wins, but his only redeeming virtue now and then was that he was the father of Rebecca De Mornay (and this will always be her song as far as I’m concerned). Edit. Ah, the scene.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Jan 18 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Hillary has been modifying her voice lately. A new TV spot on the economy in California. Soooothing and feminine. Much improved from this.
Sphere: Related ContentLee on Jan 15 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
The Tyra Banks Show emailed Michelle Malkin with some quotes from Tyra’s interview with Hillary Clinton (to be broadcast Friday). Hill proposes a nationwide reality show to determine what to call the First Husband…with dancing! And you thought the 90s were tawdry.
Sphere: Related ContentLance on Jul 27 2006 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lance's Page
(Listening notes: Dedicated to cussed Irish beekeepers everywhere: The Pogues, The Specials, The Fall, U2, and The Chieftains)
Over at Captains Quarters I noticed this:
Sphere: Related ContentEvery time war footage from Lebanon flickers across the flat screen television in my apartment on the 30th floor of a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan, I am overwhelmed by a deep feeling of sadness. When I scan through the news on the Internet each morning, I’m overtaken by anger. The result is confusion: I go to sleep at night thinking I am a dove and wake up in the morning to find out I am a hawk.
It’s gotten so bad that I have even started missing Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel who has been lying in a coma for the past six months. I find myself writing screenplays in my mind: Sharon wakes up, stares at the TV screen, and sees Israel invading Lebanon. Sharon, I think, would presume he has landed in hell where he is damned to relive the most dreadful moments of his political career.
The very fact that I am reminiscing about Sharon is shocking — many people of my generation can’t stand him. The man led Israel into its traumatic “optional war” of 1982 when we invaded Lebanon — an experience that left behind numerous scars on the Israeli population, both physical and psychological. The soldiers who fought in southern Lebanon then did not understand why they where there; why they lost their friends, their youth and their innocence; why they had to fight against an unknown enemy and patrol the streets of Lebanese cities — passing by civilians who were drinking coffee and playing backgammon in the cafes.
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